


Her Father's Daughter (Visited on the Son Remix)

by originally



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Character Study, Father-Daughter Relationship, FemmeRemix 2016, Gen, Remix, Spoilers for Book 4 - A Feast for Crows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-18 10:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7311394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing would have stood in her way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Father's Daughter (Visited on the Son Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Abu el Banat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2615774) by [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k). 



> This is a remix of Netgirl_y2k's brilliant Oberyn character study _Abu el Banat_ ; if you haven't read it, you definitely should. 
> 
> Draws on the theory that Alleras the Sphinx is Sarella Sand in disguise, in case that's not your thing.

Sarella Sand did not thrive at sea. Her father had always said as much, ever since she was a young girl. Still, she often liked to slip through Oldtown’s narrow, crooked streets down to the wharves to watch the traders come and go: great cogs and bright-sailed galleys and elegant swan ships. She had even once seen _The Feathered Kiss_ , her mother’s ship, though she had taken care not to be noticed; it would not do to have her scheme revealed when she had taken such pains to weave it so well.

Today was not a day for ships, however. It was the hidden shrines, the sailors’ temples, she had need of now.

Oyster shells crunched underfoot as she wound her way to a gloomy back-alley, the kind that no respectable acolyte would ever dare to tread. _But a protégé of the Mage and the Red Viper both holds no fear for hidden places, and only small claim to respectability_ , Sarella thought, though it did not amuse her as it once might have. The dark words from the ravenry sat too heavy on her shoulders for that. As she walked, the links of her short chain clinked gently together: bright silver and black iron, as different as two metals could be. She would soon add warm copper, different again, or so she hoped. It seemed likely; Perestan loved Alleras like a son. Everyone did, of course. She had worked hard to ensure as much, just as hard as she had worked for her links.

The silver link, she had earned first. She had begged her father many times over the years to tell her the story of her birth: a sickly babe with dark skin and viper’s eyes, a hurried flight from Dragonstone to Oldtown with a wet nurse from the royal household, a desperate search for a maester who could help, and a long, slow, patient journey back to Sunspear. He had talked of his own time at the Citadel and how he had cursed his younger self for not paying more attention to the healing arts. What’s more, though few spoke of it openly, she had learned over the years of her aunt’s frailty and her difficulties in childbirth; her father could be talkative in his cups, and her milk-mother had been only a little harder to convince. After that, she had determined it would be silver first. None of her sisters nor their babes would want for help.

The iron had come after, just like in her father’s aborted chain. She might not love the bow the way Obara loved the whip or Tyene the blade but she was a Sand Snake, and she had grown up knowing that war would come. She had been a child when her uncle had sent her to Hellholt to meet her newest sister, too young to understand the implications of what had happened, or why Nym had wept, or why she had not been allowed to see her father for what seemed like an eternity from her childish perspective. Why her father’s eyes had shone when he introduced the baby Elia. Why he had pulled Sarella into his lap and held her close for a long time, breathing into her hair and enveloping her in his comforting scent of oil and leather.

She understood now.

The sailors’ temple nestled in a cellar beneath a tavern, its damp walls covered with oilcloth. It was cool and dark and quiet inside. The only light came from flickering tallow candles that lined the walls and the makeshift altar. Statues and idols and relics were crammed haphazardly onto tables and into corners, spilling out across the floor in a riot of colours and textures. Some of them, she knew. There was the Moon-Pale Maiden, beautiful in her innocence, and there the red heart of R’hllor, and there behind them the Stranger with his hidden face. There were others she could not name: a fierce, scarred woman holding a brace of spears; another weeping, collecting her silvery tears in an urn; a bright copper bull with a red-stained begging bowl before him. Tyene could have named them all, Sarella knew; their father had read to her as a child, not only stories of the Seven but of other gods as well, strange and exotic and all worshipped by someone. Sarella had no such penchant for theology, but each time she visited, she challenged herself to learn another of their names.

This was her way: seek knowledge where you find it. Thus, the copper link for her chain was the one she had chosen for herself. History had always fascinated her, though none of her sisters shared her curiosity. None of them were stupid or unmoved, of course: Ty knew the secrets of toxins and slow-acting venoms and could recite the Seven Pointed Star by memory, Obara could rattle off any number of forms and tactics, and no-one knew more of etiquette and spycraft than Nym. But Sarella craved knowledge for its own sake, had an insatiable need to know what and why and how. Her father had always indulged her in it, and now he was dead.

Behind a statue of the Merling King stood a piece of wood, a branch varnished to a high shine. This was sacred wood from Tall Trees Town, engraved with the words of her mother’s people. Sarella ran her fingers along the smooth edge; it was warm to the touch. She closed her eyes. There was comfort to be found in ritual, truth in faith, knowledge in heritage. She thought often of her mother, and, in this, she differed from Prince Oberyn. She differed from him in other ways, too: her skin was darker than the sandiest Dornish, her hair coarsely textured, her features other. All except her eyes. She wondered, sometimes, whether Marwyn himself saw her viper’s eyes and knew, whether he recalled Prince Oberyn’s return to Oldtown and his frantic search for a maester to help his babe. Or whether he recalled the sex of that babe, the child of Oberyn Martell, father of daughters. If he did, he did not say. Even if he had recalled, like as not he would assume it was a boy child to warrant such desperate measures. Either way, he had drawn Alleras into his confidence, and this was Sarella’s place now.

This was her place, but it should have been elsewhere.

That was the long and the short of it. If she had known, if he had only told her, then nothing would have stood in her way. She would have come at once and hang all her games in Oldtown, her foolish girl’s endeavours. She felt a rush of grief and rage, boiling hot and raw under her skin. All the knowledge in the world, all the curiosity, what good did it do if she could not protect those she loved most dearly, as they would do for her? How could she comprehend a world without her father in it?

She raged and wept in the silence of the temple until she felt hollowed out and empty. Then she pulled her cloak tight around herself, set her face into the impassive mask of the Sphinx, and headed out into the streets once more, all her schemes intact.

In her head, however, she was composing ravens to each of her sisters, to her cousin, to Ellaria Sand. She ran her fingers over the iron link once more, feeling the weight of it, the coldness. Perhaps it was time to raise Dorne for war.


End file.
